of a secret society called the Kakian Union, to which
pagans, Mahommedans and Christians indiscriminately attached themselves;
and it has several times cost the Dutch authorities considerable efforts
to frustrate their machinations (see _Tijdschrift van Ned. Ind._, fifth
year). The total population is estimated at 100,000, including 12,000
Christians and 16,000 Mahommedans. The chief settlements are Savai at
the north and Elpaputeh at the south end of the isthmus of Taruno. There
was a Dutch fort at Kambello, on the west side of Little Ceram, as early
as 1646.

CERAMICS, or KERAMICS ([Greek: keramos], earthenware), a general term
for the study of the art of pottery. It is adopted for this purpose both
in French (_ceramique_) and in German (_Keramik_), and thus has its
convenience in English as representing an international form of
description for a study which owes much to the art experts of all
nations, though "ceramic" and "ceramics" do not appear in English as
technical terms till the middle of the 19th century.

The word "pottery" (Fr. _poterie_) in its widest sense includes all
objects fashioned from clay and then hardened by fire, though there is a
growing tendency to restrict the word to the commoner articles of this
great class and to apply the word "porcelain" to all the finer
varieties. This tendency is to be deprecated, as it is founded on a
misconception; the word "porcelain" should only be applied to certain
well-marked varieties of pottery. The very existence of pottery is
dependent on two important natural properties of that great and
widespread group of rocky or earthy substances known as clays, viz. the
property of plasticity (the power of being readily kneaded or moulded
while moist), and the property of being converted when fired into one of
the most indestructible of ordinary things.

The clays form such an important group of mineral substances that the
reader must refer to the article CLAY for an account of their
occurrence, composition and properties. In this article we shall only
deal with the various clays as they have affected the problems of the
potter throughout the ages. The clays found on or close to the earth's
surface are so varied in composition and properties that we may see in
them one of the vital factors that has determined the nature of the
pottery of different countries and different peoples. They vary in
plasticity, and in the hardness, colour and texture of the fired
prod